Absolute beginner question

Hi,
I’ve been plunged into the deep end helping with an audio art project. I’ve assembled an effects patch which takes a signal from a mic and features a MIDI keyboard controller to select different values relating to the main effect (they are differing lengths of delay). Each value is represented by a message. I’ve been going round and round with all the info on MIDI and can’t figure out where I’m going wrong. I just need to assign the first nine keys of a keyboard controller to the nine values. That’s all I have to do and I am failing. I know it’s pathetic but I’d be really grateful if someone could point me in the right direction as I know the solution would take a minute to sort! Thank you for any help.

just do [notein] and check the pitch values coming from the keyboard. Middle C is 60. Once you have them use [select] for the pitches. For example, if you want the 9 keys starting with middle C (including the black keys):

select 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

for white keys only:

select 60 62 64 65 67 69 71 72 74

The outlets out of [select] each get hooked up to message boxes with the delay times you want (500, 1000, 2000, etc., in milliseconds). Then those messages go where they’re needed (probably [tapin] for MSP delay).

One more tidbit of useful info… The MIDI controller will send a note-on message and a note-off message, so you’ll receive both. If you want to suppress the note-off messages and only pay attention to the note-on messages, you’ll like the stripnote object.

I don’t know anything about this software, Max/Msp. But, I know I could use it for many ideas. My first attempt is to get it working with an Apple app called GyrOSC. I need to know where to enter the IP address of my PC running windows xp into Max. If anyone has any idea, please help me out. Also tell me where to start learning this software. Thank you.